


A Beloved Ballast, an Untethered Soul

by katajainen



Series: February Ficlet Challenge 2018 [14]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Cuddling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, No beta - provided as is, Post-War of the Ring, Rebuilding of Minas Tirith, Sea-longing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-19 14:40:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13706544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katajainen/pseuds/katajainen
Summary: Gimli has spent long months on the new gates of Minas Tirith, all the while waiting for Legolas to return to him from the North.But when he does, it's clear the year has not been altogether kind to his husband.





	A Beloved Ballast, an Untethered Soul

**Author's Note:**

> Day 15 of the February Ficlet Challenge, prompt: Character B has been gone for a year.

It was the first week of March, the shadows were growing soft and cool on the streets of Minas Tirith as the day drew to a close, and his husband was waiting.

Gimli did not live in the small white house the Fellowship had shared almost two years ago, but in the third circle, closer to the smithies and the works outside the city walls. A servant had lit the fire in his absence, and he found Legolas gazing down into the flames, his face drawn as if in deep thought. The elf looked up at his approach, his eyes reflecting the warm flickering light, and the sound of Gimli’s own name on those beloved lips struck a deep echo in the heart of the dwarf, reverberating to fill the silence born of the other’s absence.

‘Legolas,’ he said simply, ‘my love.’ As they embraced, Legolas held him tight for several long, tense moments without breathing, before letting out a great shuddering sigh. It felt to Gimli like the unraveling of some long-carried strain, almost as if he had cast aside heavy armour.

'I expected you later,' Gimli said. 'I hope you did no ill to the poor horse in your haste.'

'Fret not. Arod was well pleased when I gave him his head, though I fear I should have let him come with you; the forest was not to his liking.'

'And what had I ever done with that over-tall beast? No, I trust he served you best.'

‘He carried me swiftly to where I wished to be.’ Legolas stepped back far enough to look into his face. ‘You look well.’

Gimli wanted to say likewise, but something in the elf’s manner stopped his tongue. For all their hard travels, he had never had this haunted look on him, and the intensity of his gaze could have been discomfiting, had it not been so long since he last felt the weight of those eyes on his body.

‘What news from the North?’ he asked instead.

‘I doubt there’s a reason for me to ever return,’ said Legolas, but the note in his voice was not sadness but relief, and that intrigued Gimli.

‘Come, then. Let us sit beside the fire and you can give me a full account.’

He’d had two chairs placed close to the fire when he had set up the house; low to be man-size, but not so much that any taller visitors could not be seated in comfort. Legolas disregarded these in favour of the thick rug of furs covering the tile floor in the plain heat of firelight.

‘Please–’ he held out his hand– ‘I would hold you. It has been a long time.’

‘What is a year to an elf?’ Gimli grumbled, but sat down with him all the same. He could not – would not – deny it was a comfort to lean his back against Legolas’s chest and have his strong arms encircle him.

‘For some, it is longer than for others,’ Legolas replied. ‘For those who would tend to the forest, a year is no time at all – yet to see it ravaged and broken, even with the source of evil long gone, and to know the length of time it will take to heal into its full glory…’ He trailed off, and his hands tightened in the fabric of Gimli’s tunic. ‘I find I no longer have the patience for centuries.’

‘I never thought the damage went so deep,’ said Gimli, thinking back to their parting at the eastern edge of Mirkwood. It had been bitter cold then, a month past midwinter.

Legolas rested his chin atop the crown of Gimli’s head and sighed. ‘It is not plain to the eye,’ he admitted. ‘But the land… the land is one with the king in some ways; and my father – he will not remain long on these shores, and the land feels it.’

‘He will set sail?’ And as little as he cared for the Elvenking, Gimli would not see his love so distressed. For Legolas felt deeply for his father.

‘My father has seen the longing in me, and he has decided it’s past time for him to linger.’ Gimli felt the elf grow tense again, and rested a soothing hand on his knee. ‘He would have me join him.’

‘He would ask that of you? How dare–’

‘No.’ And it took but that one word to cut through Gimli’s indignation, stilling the swift-rising protective urge that welled up within him to cry out _Mine! My own!_

‘But it was hard. To feel the great hurt of the forest, to know that many of my friends and kin would go with him… to hear the gulls cry both in sleep and awake.’ The last words were muffled when Legolas pressed his face into Gimli’s hair, and the dwarf spared a brief thought to what it might smell after a hard day’s work: smoke, molten metal, stone dust. However it was, it was not displeasing to Legolas, whom he felt breathe slow and deep. ‘I felt myself coming untethered,’ the elf said in a tired voice.

Gimli huffed in mock affront as Legolas pulled him closer. ‘This is what I am, now? A ballast for an elf who would not float away?’

‘A beloved ballast to tie myself to,’ Legolas murmured, his warm breath sending shivers over Gimli’s scalp and down his spine. Then: ‘I noticed the city has but wooden gates still.’

‘“Still”, he says!’ Gimli smiled at the abrupt change of subject. ‘I fear, my heart, that your utter ignorance was betrayed by a single word. A year is a short time for a dwarf when crafting works of such importance. Aye, we will make King Elessar gates to outlast any army that would care to come knocking, but we will not make them in haste!’

‘Any army?’ Legolas repeated, sounding more like his own self. ‘Even the likes of those that came before?’

‘Even the Witch-king, if he should come crawling back from the void, would find himself sorely tested, by both the steel and the mithril, and the bindings of strength and protection we will place on them.’

‘That’s a bold claim to make, even if it should never come to test.’

‘Far be it from me to discredit the smithcraft of Erebor – it would not be seemly, after all, to doubt my own guild.’

‘So you’ll vouch for the gate and the… bindings?’

‘Trade secrets, those, you impertinent creature!’ Gimli nudged the elf with his elbow. ‘I do not pry into your woodland charms.’

‘Yet you may soon see them employed – that is part of the reason for my delay. For while I rode ahead, there are more of my kin who come after at a steadier pace, burdened with baggage and gear. Remember; I once promised to bring trees to this city that would not die.’

‘Aye, and I thought it empty boasting even then.’

‘Rightly so.’ Legolas slotted his fingers gently between Gimli’s. ‘All trees die at the fullness of their years. But I would plant some here that will stand as long as this city does, and I hope that to be a long time indeed, since I’ve chosen for both resilience and beauty.’

Gimli tilted his head to look up at Legolas, and was caught by the moment and the soft regard of sea-grey eyes flecked golden with flame. ‘So have I,’ he whispered, ‘so have I.’

And Legolas leaned forward to kiss him, softly and with such aching sweetness that Gimli felt torn in two: part of him longed to stretch out this slow, languid moment, yet another part yearned to have all else he had missed during their long months apart. Little by little he shifted around, breaking the kiss as little as possible, until they were face to face and he could run his hand over Legolas’s cheek and down the taut column of his neck, stopping with his fingertips resting just beneath the collar of his shirt. He felt Legolas swallow, then whisper his consent against his mouth, the word so soft it was easier to feel its shape than to hear it.

Legolas run both hands impatiently down Gimli’s front, until he could open the belt cinched over his tunic. ‘You wear too many clothes,’ he insisted.

‘It’s not quite spring yet.’

‘Still. For you to be so warm in your skin yet insist on such a number of layers–’ Tunic and undershirt followed the belt to the floor, and the furs were warm against Gimli’s back as Legolas pushed him down. ‘I’m tempted to think it’s done on purpose to vex me.’

Gimli laughed, wound his hand into Legolas’s hair and pulled him into a kiss. ‘If it is, then it’s a poor attempt, for your hands strip me down faster than my own ever could. And I do have a bed in this house,’ he added. ‘One tall enough to fit my tall husband.’

Legolas shook his head, and his teeth glinted as he grinned wickedly. ‘No. Forgive me, beloved, but I don’t have the patience tonight.’ His hair fell forward in a dark curtain as he straddled him, and the firelight filtered through the strands, warm and golden as the promise of spring.

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, here's the deal: I thought this would become quite a bit more nsfw, but what happened is I ran out of time before the story got far enough.
> 
> So, what do you say: should I add chapter 2 where they do the nasty?


End file.
